Yobe APC women’s leader calls for girls’ release

Yobe State All Progressives Congress (APC) Women’s Leader, Hajiya Ladi Jibrin, has urged the abductors of the over 200 schoolgirls from Chibok to release them unconditionally.

The women’s leader, who spoke with The Nation in Damaturu, the state capital, wondered why innocent school children were being subjected to such traumatic experience.

She noted that “cutting these young girls from education is wicked”.

Hajia Jibrin added: “As goes the saying: ‘if you educate a woman, you educate a nation’. Now, tell me how you can apply that in this perspective. Cutting off those young girls from education – over 200 girls – is most wicked. We, as mothers, cannot keep quiet.

“As mothers, the thought of not seeing your children is devastating not to talk of thinking about her safety in the hands of people you do not understand their mindset. It is the last experience that you would not wish your enemy to undergo. Sadly, unlike in a movie scene, the reality is living with us.

“I feel so sad. Whoever is holding those girls should please, in the name of Allah, the Most High, release them unconditionally to their parents.”

The politician also called for prayers that would make the insurgents to release the girls, who she described as sisters and future mothers.

“These are our children, sisters, future mothers. We should all pray to God to make them (insurgents) have a change of mind and release the girls,” Hajia Jibrin said.

The APC women’s leader said all the women in the state will soon hold a peaceful protest on the streets of Damaturu for the release of the schoolgirls

The Yobe State chairperson of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Hajiya Hussana Ibrahim, regretted that Nigeria was becoming a terrifying nation.

She said: “As a mother, I was really scared to let my baby girl go to school. And if all women are feeling this way, then the fight for educating our children will never be realised.”